


Fashioned New from Old Cloth

by scifishipper



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 22:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifishipper/pseuds/scifishipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A solitary signal from Kara's viper leads them to a verdant Earth, but what lies beyond?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fashioned New from Old Cloth

Earth is beautiful. Green and verdant with rolling hills sloping gently into a flattened shore. The ocean, vast in its scope, spreads out as far as Lee can see, curling around the coastline and spanning south towards the horizon. He blinks to clear his vision, both tears and disbelief obscuring the breathtaking sight laid out below him. 

His first steps onto the soft soil feel strange, almost unsteady in the stillness around him. He has not been planetside since Kobol, and it fills him with a breathless wonder. The air is crisp and clean, almost without smell, strange to a nose that has breathed recycled air for so long. From the raptor next to his, Laura and his father emerge, eyes wide, but mouths set grim. They are afraid to believe.

Lee catches his father’s eye and raises his eyebrows, not quite ready to burst into a grin. Their celebration has been cut short by an accident that left nine crew dead from an explosion off the starboard bow. Now, as he stands looking towards a fresh beginning, it is tainted by those who haven't made it. Dee, his wife and friend, lost with Racetrack and Skulls and a handful of other crew. Even now, he can’t look at the sea, and stares instead at the ground, his eyes welling with tears. They came so close.

He startles at the hand on his shoulder. “You okay, son?” his father asks. It almost makes him cry harder, the care and concern etched on the Old Man’s face. Something changed after Saul’s betrayal. His father, once hard and proud, seems smaller now, even in the face of finding Earth. It’s just been too much.

Unable to speak, Lee nods, swiping away tears. He looks east toward the rolling hill and a swatch of trees at the base. Wildflowers grow tall, dappling the view with color. It’s the perfect spot for Dee’s final rest. Earth at last, although she deserved more.

“Come on. Let’s take a walk,” his father says, brushing past him.

Lee glances over at Laura, sees her face finally lit with some hope. When she turns away without catching his gaze, Lee sets off after his father. He trails behind the older man, towards the waves and the shore, now dotted with other survivors, both cylon and human. Instead of the joy he expects to see from faces along the way, he sees tears and he understands. The journey has been a long and deadly one and this alliance with the cylons is uncertain. He fears more conflict will emerge to test them. 

He catches up to Bill. “The alliance, dad. How are we handling it?” The tall grass scrapes against the top of his hand as they make their way towards the sandy beach.

“We have to adapt, son. Laura’s back as President, but she’ll need you. She’s not well.” 

Lee glances at his father. He knows Laura’s illness weighs on him. “I’ll help her any way I can. We haven’t been exactly close, though.” 

Bill frowns. “No. Laura holds a mean grudge.”

They’ve stopped at the edge of the water and the sand grits beneath Lee’s boots. He scans the beach on both sides of him. “Speaking of grudges, have you seen Kara around?”

Bill gives him a curious look.

Lee smiles a little, despite himself. Sometimes he thinks his father sees more than he lets on.

The ocean draws Bill’s gaze again. “She was on the raptor with some of the cylons from the baseship, tracking down the signal that brought us here.” 

Lee still can't process it all, Kara’s disappearance, her return, the bizarre set of circumstances that led her to find this place. 

Lee glances at his father. “What do you make of it all?” he asks, not sure there’s an answer.

“I don’t know anymore, son. I just know that we’re here now.” Bill steps back and glances towards the raptors. “Laura’s waving, Lee. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, dad.” His father squeezes his arm as he passes, leaving Lee wondering at the way his entire life has gone upside down. This new and strange closeness with his dad, Dee gone, and Kara . . . he doesn’t even know. With a heavy sigh, he shoves his hands deep into his pockets and kicks a shell across the sand. It’s a whole new life.

:: :: :: ::

The air on Colonial One tastes stale after the freshness of Earth, the salted undertones of their landing site near the sea. Dee’s things are laid out before him, the remnants of her life fitting into a small box. His box, he realizes morbidly, would be even smaller. 

Felix had given him the box, taking from it a picture of Dee as a child, the one she’d kept near their bed on Pegasus. It had been a memory she cherished, muffling the sadness about her father’s rejection, his eventual death at the hands of the cylons. 

As he combs through the box, he lays the items on the oblong table in front of him. When the box is empty he peers inside, wonders why he’s surprised to find no ring. He hadn’t expected her to keep it on, but like him, maybe it made her feel connected to something that might have worked, if everything else had changed. 

With a grim face, Lee sighs and slouches back onto the sofa, his mind adrift, grieving and remembering. It shouldn’t have been so hard to be married, to capture some sense of happiness while he could. And he guesses he did – for a little while as they spun around New Caprica. Even that, if he’s honest, was still couched in a lie, numbing a passion for someone else into boredom and routine. 

The weight of her life sits in the room with Lee, sharpening his betrayal, not just in the flesh, but in his heart for as long as he had known his wife. Gently, carefully, he places each item back into the box, saving nothing for himself. His memories would be enough.

As he settles the lid back onto the box, a soft knock draws his attention to the hatch. It’s Kara. He smiles faintly. “Hey.” 

“Hey.” She looks at his face and then down to the box. “Those Dee’s things?” 

“Yeah.” He snaps the lid down onto the box and slides it onto the floor. 

“I’m sorry about her. I mean, I heard, you know, the comm traffic about it. I should have said something.” Kara shifts on her feet, uncomfortable.

Lee rises, sliding a hand through his hair. “It’s okay, Kara. There was no time.” They’d been boarding shuttles for Earth when the explosion happened. Still, almost fifteen hours later, no one knows what went wrong. It is a strange, unwieldy mix of grief and joy, and he’s simply tired. 

“Lee…” 

Her words raise his eyes to her face again. It’s pale and tired with scratches on her cheek. “You okay?” he asks, taking a step towards her.

“Yeah, I… Look, I just need to tell someone. That signal…” She stops herself short, glancing around the room, her fingers tightening around the gloves in her hands.

“What about it?”

When she doesn’t continue and he steps closer. “What happened, Kara?”

“It was me, I mean, my viper. The old one.” She glances at him and then brushes past to walk deeper into his quarters. She starts to pace.

“What do you mean?”

“My ship, the one I… The one I flew into the storm. It's on Earth, down there, and it has a beacon. That’s what my ship locked on to.” She spins and faces him full on. “What the frak, Lee? How is that possible? It doesn’t frakking make any sense.” Kara shoves a fallen lock of hair behind her ear. 

Lee shakes his head. “I have no idea, Kara. I don’t understand any of it.” He can’t even begin to get his head around the idea that somehow this was all orchestrated by some higher power. 

“It was wrecked. Burned to a crisp.” Kara finds one of the cushioned seats and slumps down into it, casting her legs out in front of her. “I don’t remember any of it. I did I escape a crash like that? Did someone save me?”

“It wasn’t the cylons, right? You’re sure?” Lee sits across from her.

“No, I’m not frakking sure. I just… It doesn’t make sense. Frak.” She lets her eyes drift closed. This has been hard on her and he hadn’t even noticed. 

“What do you want me to do, Kara?” He makes an offer but has no idea what she needs. 

After a long moment, Kara opens her eyes. “I don’t frakking know. I need to just forget this. We found Earth, right?” Kara sits forward, her usual energy flowing into her body again. “I need to quit bellyaching.” She rubs her hands against the plastifab of her flightsuit. 

Lee smiles, his heart feeling brighter. “Yeah. It’s beautiful, right?” 

Kara glances at him and bursts out laughing. “Gods, Lee. We’re ridiculous. We frakking found Earth and we’re both moping like lost puppies. We should be celebrating.” Kara stands and heads toward his private quarters. “I know you have booze in here somewhere.” She starts to rifle through the drawers on his desk and he just watches, amused.

“Under the printer behind you,” he finally offers, and she turns and pulls out a mostly-empty bottle of whiskey. 

“Holding out, Adama. I knew you Presidential types had a stash.” Kara grabs two glasses and hands one to Lee. She pours two healthy portions and sets the bottle on a small table between them.

Lee raises his glass, hope and relief reflected in his eyes. “To those bright shiny futures I didn’t think we’d ever see.”

Kara smiles at him, both pensive and playful, and clinks her glass against his. “So say we all, Lee. So say we all.”


End file.
